08-17-2023, 08:13 PM
(08-17-2023, 07:39 PM)grampahol Wrote: Something left out is the Soviet Union at the time was about to enter the war with Japan as well. Japanese already had a big beef with the Soviets so better to take their chances with the Americans than the communists. Think about the ramifications if the Soviets had taken control of Japan and all of Korea as well as China. They surrendered to US forces instead. Communists won in China, but eventually were stopped in Korea a few years later. Otherwise the balance of power would have been quite different..
The Soviets had already entered the war, after the first bomb. They actually entered early. Truman had secured an agreement for them to enter the war on August 15th. However, once they received news of the atomic bombs, they invaded Manchuria early.
I wouldn't say that Japan had beef with the Soviet Union. They were neutral. In fact, the Japanese had put out feelers to the Soviet Union in an attempt to hopefully use them as an intermediary to negotiate a more favorable peace package. Hell, there was a couple of naïve minds that believed the Soviets could be talked into defending the mainland from the Americans, though there was never a chance of that. Point being, they didn't have any major beef from their perspective. Once the bomb was dropped and the Soviets invaded Manchuria, it was a very grim day for Japanese leadership. Those two events were the largest contributors to the timing of the Japanese surrender. The second bomb didn't have as big of an influence. There were some in the war cabinet that believed the United States was bluffing and that they only had one bomb, so when a second was dropped it was just the realization that the U.S. did, indeed, have multiple. Of course, that was all that they had, but Japan didn't know that.
